American Ugly

[Martín Zalacaín]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

But we would be wise not to neglect that which is good in America. Of course, official America is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, ideological enemy of European nationalisms and traditionalism world-wide, but this should not lead to such a black and white perception of such a vast country, which has an abundance of cultural and intellectual traditions that the European nationalist, identitarian or traditionalist would find interesting and perhaps even inspiring.

Would you please name a few? No sarcasm intended, I'm willing to learn.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

...

PaleoYankee seems to be a Paleo-conservative, judging by his profile. There is one political and intellectual current worth studying, in my humble opinion.

Much of this bickering, which leads to collective resentment, can be avoided if only we were a tad less provocative in our communication at times. It only leads to a lot of unnecessary feuding between people, who in principle are in agreement politically.

I agree that the US is often slandered unfairly and unthinkingly but I would still support the motives behind such slander. Considering how much damage the US is doing on the world stage I would say the more anti-Americanism the better; but I would want it to be thoughtful and well-argued anti-Americanism based on reality.

It is also worth mentioning that not all Americans are part of the problem; some of the most useful websites on the current mess come from the US. Nevertheless I do not see anything in the American paleo-conservative tradition that is of much use outside the United States. Even Canada/Australia/NZ would do better to come up with their own ideas rather than adopt the New Jerusalem concept of the US republic.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

but this should not lead to such a black and white perception of such a vast country, which has an abundance of cultural and intellectual traditions that the European nationalist, identitarian or traditionalist would find interesting and perhaps even inspiring...

But what if the USA is not really a complex country so that we don't do it an injustice by describing it in simplified form? What if it lacks the rich and subtle history of Spain and Germany? What if there's not much to say about American architecture or literature or philosophy? And what little there is to say occurred, say, about a century ago, when the character of the country was different?

What can one say about a country whose head of state is not only a moron but more importantly, has to be marketed as one? Where any sort of cultural or intellectual disposition rules one out as a candidate for public office? Where the country's celebrities are known only for their crassness and crudity?

Much of this bickering, which leads to collective resentment, can be avoided if only we were a tad less provocative in our communication at times. It only leads to a lot of unnecessary feuding between people, who in principle are in agreement politically.

There's no bickering among Europeans about the character of the USA. Americans might possibly be offended by such a frank discussion though I've found even Americans having to agree with my outlook.

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by bombadillo

But what if the USA is not really a complex country so that we don't do it an injustice by describing it in simplified form? What if it lacks the rich and subtle history of Spain and Germany? What if there's not much to say about American architecture or literature or philosophy? And what little there is to say occurred, say, about a century ago, when the character of the country was different?

What can one say about a country whose head of state is not only a moron but more importantly, has to be marketed as one? Where any sort of cultural or intellectual disposition rules one out as a candidate for public office? Where the country's celebrities are known only for their crassness and crudity?

As I said, the "Official America", the one we see on TV and read in the newspapers about, is worthy of any amount of bashing. This doesn't mean that there isn't stuff out there, when you dig for it, that is worth further study. There are plenty of good American authors, thinkers and political thinkers, that we can look to for inspiration.

There's no bickering among Europeans about the character of the USA. Americans might possibly be offended by such a frank discussion though I've found even Americans having to agree with my outlook.

Perhaps I was being unclear but I meant provocative communication in general. Not specifically between Americans and Europeans but between stirpes members in general.

[PaleoYankee]

"Mission failed"

Um, no. He said something about my nation that sounded as if he was boasting, so I simply wondered what he was boasting about.

"That's not a valid comparison. Except for their Scandinavian, Finnish and few NW Russian neighbours, for other Europeans the Saami are an exotic and borderline case, while many more others just ignore their existance.

It is as if we took Alabamans as the archetype of Americans."

Yes, but I wasn't talking about all europeans, just the Sami. It was a SAmi who made the remark. Honestly, I admit that many european nations have much more history than mine, but I don't see how he can say my nation has nothing worth mentioning when his isn't exactly Greece or China either.

[wilpuri]

The Sápmi have a rich tradition stretching back millenia, and what's more, much of this tradition is still present in every day Sápmi life - it is much more than most nations can boast. America is not a nation, unless you support some sort of civil nationalism, which defines the concept of nation by a piece of paper. Civil nationalism or State nationalism is a liberal concept and in opposition to true identitarian nationalism, which I suspect most members here support.

[PaleoYankee]

"And what little there is to say occurred, say, about a century ago, when the character of the country was different?"

"As I said, the "Official America", the one we see on TV and read in the newspapers about, is worthy of any amount of bashing. This doesn't mean that there isn't stuff out there, when you dig for it, that is worth further study. "


Yes, that hits the nail on the head. America WAS a great country. America allowed itself to be overcome by too much immigration and excessive dumbness. Instead of bashing all america I think you should see it as a country that once had potential but succumbed to many of the very things which seem to threaten your countries today.

[PaleoYankee]

"The Sápmi have a rich tradition stretching back millenia, and what's more, much of this tradition is still present in every day Sápmi life - it is much more than most nations can boast"

Fair enough. I stand corrected. However, he's still wrong in saying that america has nothing worth mentioning.

"America is not a nation, unless you support some sort of civil nationalism"

The words nation and country seem to get used somewhat interchangebly here. I guess I should clean up my language when dealing with people from other countries.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by PaleoYankee

Yes, that hits the nail on the head. America WAS a great country. America allowed itself to be overcome by too much immigration and excessive dumbness. Instead of bashing all america I think you should see it as a country that once had potential but succumbed to many of the very things which seem to threaten your countries today.

Yes, quite so. This not the USA of Emerson, Poe, Twain, Whitman, Thoreau, and Henry James. That USA could have evolved into something that could have joined the European nations on an equal footing. And just as the English and French people have come about as a result of different people migrating to England and France, the same could have been true of the USA. Instead -- for reasons we can doubtless quibble about -- it went down another route altogether into the ghastly mess it is today.

I find it inconceivable that any thinking American can possibly be complacent about the nature of his country today, and its spiritual and intellectual vacuity -- a corollary of which is its militaristic and overbearing posture.

[PaleoYankee]

"I find it inconceivable that any thinking American can possibly be complacent about the nature of his country today, and its spiritual and intellectual vacuity -- a corollary of which is its militaristic and overbearing posture."

It really gets to me sometimes that we've turned out this way. To read american history in the 1800's then the late 1900's is very depressing.

Back to topic, this site Built St. Louis: Home has some of what is beautiful and some of what is truly ugly about my hometown of St. Louis, MO.

[wilpuri]

I'm glad we were able to find a "common tune", so to say.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by PaleoYankee

Back to topic, this site Built St. Louis: Home has some of what is beautiful and some of what is truly ugly about my hometown of St. Louis, MO.

I believe that there is still some Spanish and French architecture left there.

Originally Posted by wilpuri

I'm glad we were able to find a "common tune", so to say.

[Ximenes]

Mainstreet of a German-Catholic Iowa town.

Let us distinguish Americanism in the narrow sense if you like, namely, the particular error of certain American Catholics at the end of the last century, who were condemned gently by Leo XIII in 1899 in his encyclical Testem Benevolentiae; and Americanism in the broad sense, that is to say the new life of the New World, the precursor of the New World Order. In other words, Americanism in a very broad sense, the Masonic idea, if you like, as concretized in America. That broad Americanism had already been exploding for a century before 1899 and was at the very most gently tickled by Leo XIII. And yet the mushroom cloud of this broad Americanism is extending over the whole world.

"Slay errors, but love those who err," says St. Augustine. As much as we may detest the United States as a Masonic idea, so much we may love it as a concrete country whose inhabitants have enough natural virtues to have set up the most powerful republic in all history, and enough supernatural gifts to set up today the second most numerous country in the world from the point of view of Catholic Tradition. This last year by chance, the seminaries in the rest of the Society did not have as many seminarians as Winona did. It is in Europe that the American error began. It is Europeans who brought Americans into their three World Wars, the third war, as Archbishop Lefebvre used to say, being Vatican Council II. And it is Europeans who brought each of these wars to an end with a Masonic and American solution. It is Europeans who are choosing today to Americanize themselves. Nobody is forcing Europeans to do so, and so I hope it is well understood that what follows is going to be an attack not on the United States or Americans as a nation, as a concrete nation or country, but as the first incarnation of a Masonic ideal which is now triumphing throughout the world, including inside the Catholic Church. That is where the problem is.

Americanism

[Ximenes]

Nevertheless, the Masonic idea is especially strong in the USA, and it has over the last two centuries succeeded in corrupting generations of authentically Catholic immigrants. The Masonic idea is all around us, day by day it threatens to corrupt our own Catholic Faith, and if it is allowed to have its way, it will utterly destroy Catholic Tradition. With Vatican II it penetrated into the Catholic churchmen with the result that great parts of the church have disintegrated before our eyes. So we may and we must love the country of our birth as God meant us to do, but that will not stop us from examining the godless idea which will, left to itself, destroy our nation, our Church, our souls.

Americanism

[i-hate-snow]

Originally Posted by Gonzalvus

American society is highly materialistc, with no traditions nor culture nor spirituality to rely on.

I think that was indeed a very uncultured statement on you're behalf. Have you even been to America? Have you really interacted with Americans closely enough to uncover our "materialistic" tendencies? Correct me if I am wrong, but most material status symbols in America and around the world originate in Europe from modern Europeans' narcissistic need to be the best dressed and most stylish. There is so much more to the United States than suburban tract housing and multiculturalism (hmm, western Europe doesn't have THAT problem either). Shows real maturity and deep thinking on your part.

Also, keep in mind that no one can help where they were born--you shouldn't knock European-americans, we make up a LARGE portion of the European diaspora and have actually done fine jobs of preserving our forefathers' cultures here in the vast, wild New World. People have lived in my town since 1670 and, to my way of thinking, historical Georgian, Tudor, and colonial architecture is just as attractive here as it is back in England.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by i-hate-snow

I think that was indeed a very uncultured statement on you're behalf.

You might be right, if you lowered the standards of what's cultural, what's spiritual and what's traditional.

Have you even been to America? Have you really interacted with Americans closely enough to uncover our "materialistic" tendencies?

Mostly with your educated elite, in real life. And on the internet I'm tempted to say that with your uneducated mass. But I'm not sure if such a difference could be made on fair grounds. If anywhere in the world egalitarianism is true, that is in the United States of America.

Correct me if I am wrong, but most material status symbols in America and around the world originate in Europe from modern Europeans' narcissistic need to be the best dressed and most stylish.

I'm afraid that you are taking a very simplistic vision of things. Until the americanization of Europe (and of the rest of the world) ... or should I say until the unacculturation (as a new concept word, after the expansion of a phenomenon contrary to that of acculturation, a process product of the so-called americanization), style was (and it still is in many) something intrinsec to culture which is not linked to consumption materialism as you, as an American, would believe.

There is so much more to the United States than suburban tract housing and multiculturalism (hmm, western Europe doesn't have THAT problem either). Shows real maturity and deep thinking on your part.

I'm afraid that you have jumped to conclusions, too quickly. See above.

Also, keep in mind that no one can help where they were born

God has a strange sense of humour. Life is so unfair. But such is life!

--you shouldn't knock European-americans, we make up a LARGE portion of the European diaspora and have actually done fine jobs of preserving our forefathers' cultures here in the vast, wild New World.

Would it surprise you to know, that what you call 'preserve' we may see it as 'degenerate'?

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

If anywhere in the world egalitarianism is true, that is in the United States of America.

I agree with the rest of your post so have snipped it out. The USA pays more lip service to egalitarianism than anyone else, and there is a surface veneer of back-slapping familiarity, equality, and democr